Wednesday, July 18, 2007

An era has officially ended at one of Chicago's major railroad crosstrack junctions on the Southside. After many years of being the "Last" manually controlled steam era junctions with old fashioned manual semaphore signals in America...Chicago's Brighton Junction has officially closed. The junction now has automatic block signals and state of the art technology today. The operators little shanty is now padlocked, and the old semaphores have been dismantled and removed from the site. The gray morning skies today pretty much sum up My mood. It was like paying ones respects at a wake.

The Norfolk Southern Railroad is currently exploring the possibility of making the shanty and signals, into a future museum display somewhere in the near future. I hope it happens soon.The red stop signs have since been removed from this location as well. An era has ended.

1 comment:

anthony c
said...

The Chicago Tribune article noted how the operater got a little choked up when he locked up for the last time. Not what you'd expect from a rough 'n' gruff railroader. It shows that even those guys had a sentimental attachment to the place. How could someone not? Sure, it was a dump, but can you imagine the cool old equipment in that shack?

That place easily had to be one of the most unusual workplaces around, no doubt.

Wonder if anyone documented he actual removal of the semaphores on that fateful day? We'll probably see it soon in one or more of the rail mags.